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National Numismatic Collection

Online Exhibitions

Where Money and History MeetLearn more about the National Numismatic Collection (NNC) through online exhibitions about topics such as: Byzantium; the coinage of Spain; he Double Eagle; life in Ancient Greece; the Coins of the Demareteion Master; outstanding U.S. rarities; Russian coins and medals; Native Americans, women, and African–Americans on early United States bank notes; and the evolution of American money.

Legendary Coins & CurrencyThis exhibition explores rare and historically significant artifacts from the National Numismatic Collection—more than half of which have never been on view, or not for many years. Coins, bills, medals, and captivating oddities—such as pattern designs, fake coins, and homemade clam shell money from the Great Depression—are on display.

United States Mint, Philadelphia. Obverse: Head of Liberty facing left, hair bound with a fillet, stars surrounding, date below. Reverse: Eagle, denomination. Designer William Kneass used his "Classic Head" idea for quarter eagles as well as halves. Coins with this general depiction of the goddess were struck from 1834 through 1839. Perhaps five proof quarter eagles exist from 1835. This is one of the nicest.

United States Mint, Philadelphia. Obverse: Head of Liberty facing left, hair bound with a fillet, stars surrounding, date below. Reverse: Eagle, denomination. This coin is one of two proof half eagles dated 1836. They may have been struck to commemorate the admission of Arkansas as the twenty-fifth state. Eminent numismatic researcher Walter Breen asserted that belief in his encyclopedia of U.S. coins.

United States Mint, Philadelphia. Obverse: Head of Liberty facing left, hair bound with a fillet, stars surrounding, date below. Reverse: Eagle, denomination. Four proof coins including this coin are known for this date of 1836 and this denomination of quarter eagle.

Until the later discoveries of gold west of the Mississippi River, the U.S. had little gold for making coins. A gold strike in Rutherford, North Carolina provided some new gold. Soon, the U.S. Mint established branch mints in Dahlonega, Georgia and Charlotte, North Carolina to mint gold coins close to the discoveries in those areas. In addition, a branch mint in New Orleans was established convert foreign coins that arrived at this very busy port into U.S. coins. Other sources for gold included French coins that recently arrived as an indemnity payment as well as melting down old American coins and re-issuing the precious metal as new U.S. coins.

United States Mint, Philadelphia. Obverse: Head of Liberty facing left, hair bound with a fillet, stars surrounding, date below. Reverse: Eagle, denomination. This variety for 1837 half eagles with a large date on the obverse and a large 5 for the denomination on the reverse is believed to be unique.

United States Mint, Philadelphia. Obverse: Head of Liberty facing left, hair bound with a fillet, stars surrounding, date below. Reverse: Eagle, denomination. Two other quarter eagle proofs have been reported for 1837, although those two may be the same coin, sold in 1904 and kept in hiding for three-quarters of a century!

The gold British sovereigns that James Smithson bequeathed to the United States were melted down and re-struck as American coins. Some of the gold went into the reissue of the ten-dollar piece, or eagle. There were other factors at work, of course, including two Acts of Congress that reduced the weight and fineness of all United States gold coins, in an effort to keep them in circulation.

The resumption of eagle coinage was ordered in July 1838, and between seven and eight thousand of the coins, the first eagles struck since 1804, were minted at the beginning of December. Smithson's legacy played a role: the knowledge that a massive amount of bullion was on its way across the Atlantic fostered the decision to resume the eagle, the largest existing American denomination.

Christian Gobrecht was responsible for the designs on the resumed eagle coinage. His left-facing Liberty sported a coronet (there is a copper cent, also by Gobrecht, with a nearly identical arrangement), while the rounded tip of the truncation points to the "1" in the date.

A simple eagle with shield appears on the reverse. The obverse design was modified slightly in 1839, the truncation now being centered above the date. A handful of proofs, specimen coins of record or for VIPs, was also struck. Three have been reliably reported, and a fourth is rumored.

This coin may be one of those minted from the bequest that James Smithson left to the United States for the creation of the Smithsonian Institution. James Smithson was born in 1765 as the illegitimate son of Sir Hugh Smithson, later known as Sir Hugh Percy, Baronet, 1st Duke of Northumberland, K.G., and Elizabeth Hungerford Keate. Elizabeth Keate had been married to James Macie, and so Smithson first bore the name of James Lewis Macie.

His mother later married Mark Dickinson, by whom she had another son. When she died in 1800, he and his half-brother inherited a sizable estate. He changed his name at this time from "Macie" to "Smithson."

James Smithson died June 27, 1829, in Genoa, Italy. His will left his fortune to his nephew, son of his half-brother, but stipulated that if that nephew died without children (legitimate or illegitimate), the money should go "to the United States of America, to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men." The nephew, Henry Hungerford Dickinson, died without heirs in 1835, and Smithson's bequest was accepted in 1836 by the United States Congress.

James Smithson never visited the United States, and the reason for his generous bequest is unknown. The gift was the foundation grant for the Smithsonian Institution. The British gold coins in Smithson's bequest were quickly carried to the Philadelphia Mint, where they were melted down and recycled into American gold coins.

Most of the new coins were half eagles or five-dollar pieces. On the obverse, they have a left-facing Liberty head, her hair bound with a ribbon; on the reverse is a simple, unexceptional eagle with denomination.

The original design was the product of a German immigrant named John Reich, substantially altered by a second artist named William Kneass, tweaked again by another German immigrant, Christian Gobrecht. James Smithson's gold, now recycled into new, Americ

To process the gold and silver being mined in new locations, the federal government passed legislation to open three new branch mints in 1835: in Charlotte, North Carolina; Dahlonega, Georgia; and New Orleans, Louisiana. The first two would only strike coins from local gold. The third would mint coins from silver as well as from gold, because those two metals were pouring into the Crescent City from Latin America.

All three branch facilities opened their doors in 1838. The New Orleans Mint was a success from the very beginning. The other two suffered growing pains but finally reached full production in the 1850s. All three closed during the Civil War, but New Orleans eventually reopened in 1879 and remained a major player in the country's monetary system until the first decade of the twentieth century. Charlotte and Dahlonega stayed closed.

A way was sought to distinguish the products of these new mints from those of the original one. Philadelphia had never marked its coins-there had been no need, with no other coiners in existence. But now a way was devised to show which coins came from where.

A mint mark, consisting of a single letter, would be placed on each of the products of the branch Mints-an O for New Orleans, a D for Dahlonega, and a C for Charlotte. The mint marks briefly appeared on the coins' obverse, but then they were relegated to the reverse, where they remained.

Collectors call the 1838 Charlotte half eagle a "one-year type": coins of this design with the obverse mint mark were only struck during that single year. There were about seventeen thousand of them, compared with over a quarter million at Philadelphia.

United States Mint, New Orleans. Obverse: Capped bust of Liberty facing left, stars surrounding, date and mint mark (O, for New Orleans) below. Reverse: Eagle, denomination (HALF DOL.). In 1835, Congress amended American coining laws. These laws made numismatic history. Three branches of the United States Mint were established. Two were in the southern Piedmont region, at Charlotte, North Carolina, and Dahlonega, Georgia. These facilities were intended for the coinage of gold.

The third branch was set up at New Orleans, Louisiana, hundreds of miles from any mining activity, but the major port of entry for gold and silver coinage shipped in from Mexico and points south. It is estimated that twenty 1838-dated half dollars were struck in proof, perhaps at the beginning of the following year. Numismatist and U.S. coin encyclopedist Walter Breen believed they were minted to test the coining capabilities of a new large press. But they also could have been intended as presentation pieces. We know of eleven survivors. We don't know what happened to the other nine.

United States Mint, Philadelphia. Obverse: Head of Liberty facing left, wearing coronet; stars around, date below. Reverse: Eagle, denomination (TEN D.). A reduction in the stipulated weight of the ten dollar gold piece, or eagle, offered promise that the coin would be kept in circulation rather than heading for the melting pot as soon as it was struck. Accordingly, the Mint was instructed to resume eagle coinage. It employed the talents of a new, skilled designer, Christian Gobrecht, better known for his impact on American silver coinage of the same era.